Boulders, bees and excessive media attention — just some things you can expect as a foreigner running a race in China

The start of the half marathon — a mess. Much like most of the race.

Last month, I saw an advertisement for a 10k in the Shenzhen subway. I’d recently gotten back into running, and I needed the prospect of a competition to motivate me to run longer distances. So, I decided to sign up. Races are especially fun when you do them with friends, so I convinced 13 other people from CTLC to do the race with me.

We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.

The competition — the “Run for Love” — took place on Sunday, and it was held on, to put it lightly, the worst course I’ve ever run.

I should have gotten the hint when I read the title of the race (“2009 Shenzhen Yantian Salt Mountain Marathon”), but I assumed “mountain” was something that was lost in (Google) translation. Nope, turns out when you sign up for a race with the word “mountain” in the title, no matter what language that title may be in, you should be prepared to run up a mountain and not, say, some hills.

The total height of the incline was 175 meters, or about 575 feet. Having climbed a 1700m mountain on a whim two months ago, I foolishly figured this race would be a piece of cake.

This chart makes running up a mountain look easy.

The course for the 10k, half marathon and marathon

Come race day, I discovered how off the mark this assumption was. It was interesting to see how many other runners dropped like flies started walking once that “piece of cake” incline became unbearable. I’ve never seen such a huge percentage of runners walk during a race.

And believe me when I say it was unbearable. I used to run cross country in high school. I know what hilly courses are like.

To make matters worse, much of the course was set on a gravel trail. But this wasn’t your average gravel. Runners had to swerve left and right to avoid slipping on miniature boulders. Yours truly nearly twisted an ankle after tripping over one on the way back down.

Nope, I didn't take this while running. I found it on the race website — after the race. Wish I had known beforehand how unstable the path would be.

“Xiao xin, xiao xin [careful, careful]!” a fellow runner yelled to me as I recovered from the near-fall. “Man man pao bu [Run slower].”

Perhaps the most amusing, albiet life-threatening aspect of the competition was the mysterious boxes aligning the sides of the gravel trail for a considerable portion of the race. Turns out they were holding bees. Yes, bees.

Again, found this photo of the bee boxes on the race website...after the race.

The bees were relatively calm on the way up, but someone had apparently knocked one of the boxes down before I turned around to run back down the mountain. I narrowly avoided getting stung, but some of my friends weren’t as lucky.

Because the incline up the mountain was so steep, it made the run back down very interesting. But once I got past the boulders, I was flying.

I’m a little embarrassed about my finishing time (1:14), but given the course’s difficulty, I’m not terribly disappointed.

Aside from the actual race itself, the experience was fun. Of the 13 other friends who signed up, nine ended up competing. We managed to find an Italian restaurant downtown on the eve of the race to carb ourselves up for the big day. Then we booked a hotel near the starting line that night.

My sister and me during the 2006 Turkey Trot in Detroit. Running with wings wasn't too difficult.

The morning of the race was also an amusing experience. Along with two other participants, we were the only foreigners. (Check out this list of women running the 10k — you’ll find our chunk of English names at the bottom of the page). As such, we attracted a lot of attention from the runners, spectators and even the media. In fact, one person in our group was interviewed by the local paper. We were also the subjects of countless photos and video shots. (Scroll to the bottom of this post to see some of them).

I also continued my tradition of wearing ridiculous accessories (see picture at right) for long road races. Three years ago, I dressed as a fairy princess for the 2006 Turkey Trot in Detroit (also a 10k).

Having been in China for four months now, I am pretty used to the stares and, yes, even the people “subtly” taking photos of me from afar. But that didn’t make being the subject of photos without permission any less annoying.

Photos of us waiguoren (foreigners), courtesy of the local media: